Expectations
by Etrixan
Summary: Two Shot: After DoC, Cloud is trying to do better, why isn’t it enough? One chapter from his viewpoint. One from Tifa's.
1. Cloud

**Title:** Expectations: Cloud  
**Prompt:** Evil plot bunnies jumping around in my brain  
**Posted:** 10-Jan-2009  
**Disclaimer:** I have a job that doesn't include working for Square Enix, and this isn't helping me quit.  
**Pairings:** Cloud/Tifa  
**Rating:** PG  
**Summary:** They're trying to do better, why isn't it enough?  
**Warnings:** A little violence, a little swearing and blunt talk about sex.

* * *

**Cloud**

He just didn't get it.

He was doing everything they expected of him and it _still_ wasn't enough. He didn't understand what he was doing wrong.

He answered his PHS now... most of the time.

Yuffie phoned every day but she usually didn't have anything important to say. He and Cid and Vincent had agreed that it wasn't rational to expect them to answer every time she called so they'd established a schedule. Cloud talked to her on the first day, Vincent took the second, and Cid answered on day three. Day four they all took off and ignored her.

Vincent usually only called when it was a planet-destroying emergency so Cloud always answered his calls. Cid called mostly about work related stuff but occasionally to talk about his newest airship. He didn't mind listening to the guy talk about engines and speed. The pilot often had ideas on how to make a better engine for Fenrir. He could live with Cid phoning him.

Barret though... Barret called mostly to brag about his latest find and how much money he'd be making soon, very soon. Although soon was never as quick as Cloud thought it should be, so Marlene was still staying with Tifa with just flying visits from her adoptive father. And when he did show up, the miner was loud, foul-mouthed and spoiling for a fight. He was like that on the phone too. Cloud sometimes answered Barret's calls.

He answered when Reeve phoned, even though the man liked to talk almost as much as Yuffie. The head of the WRO usually had work for him along with whatever gossip he felt the need to share. Sometimes it was deliveries, but sometimes there had been monster sightings along the road or close to a town, and he'd ask the blond swordsman to go out and investigate. Investigate and eliminate if necessary.

Those were the best calls.

Cloud would race out to wherever, pull out Tsuguri, and do what he did best against zoloms, marlboros, cactuars, dragons and wolves. Anything Gaia had put on the earth that could eat people, Cloud had fought it. He sometimes thought it was like a dance, speed, rhythm, footing, balance, and strength, all combined into a flow of motion that brought him truly alive.

He'd always thought he hated fighting but he'd realized, during the fight with the Remnants, that he actually loved it, loved the rush of adrenaline that heightened all his senses. He saw farther, moved faster, heard clearer. When he focussed on the creature in front of him everything was sharp and simple. At the end of the battle he'd be flushed and panting. He'd feel the blood rushing through his veins. It was like he could float or jump mountains, and he wanted to grin and laugh and shout from the joy of it.

Not like anything else in his life.

He'd moved in with Tifa like everyone had expected. Not just having a room above the bar either, but sharing her life, the routine of it. He cleaned the gutters and washed the dishes. He helped to look after the kids and tried to pretend they were a normal family. He didn't really know what a normal family was but he was trying. It just wasn't good enough.

Tifa would _look_ at him. That look that said he'd done something wrong again, but she never told him what it was, or she _did_ but it didn't make any sense.

Like when she'd asked him what colour to paint the halls. Not green and not white, he'd said. The labs in Nibelheim had been green and white. According to Tifa he hadn't been specific enough but it had answered her question. Just not the way she'd wanted.

He hadn't appreciated Marlene's picture enough, she'd say.

Well, no, probably not but that's because it looked like she'd used her toes to make a jumbled mess of crayon streaks in every conceivable colour. It's not like he'd say anything unkind when Marlene showed him another one of her 'paintings'. All he'd say was it was colourful.

It should have been good enough but it wasn't.

She expected him to help Denzel go through puberty because he knew about guy stuff, she said.

Help him how? He couldn't teach the kid how to shave. He couldn't remember ever having to shave, and even if there had been a time when he'd had facial hair that had ended in Nibelheim. He couldn't make growing pains go away or stop the kid's voice from cracking. But she'd _looked_ at him so he'd tried to remember something, anything about his teen years and he had. He remembered thinking about sex all the time, walking around half the day with an erection, and jacking off most every night. He also remembered that all the boys in the barracks had done the same thing.

Since it was a good bet Denzel was similar to all those other boys he'd taken the kid aside and told him about sex and condoms and why masturbation was better than getting someone pregnant or catching a disease. Then he'd bought the kid some oil, so he wouldn't give himself friction burns, and a book, so he could get some ideas about what he liked. Stuff he could've used when he was Denzel's age.

When Tifa found them she'd stomped through the bar shouting Cloud's name and fucking _hit_ him.

He didn't understand. He'd done what she'd asked but somehow it wasn't right.

Then there was his actual relationship with Tifa. It should be better than it was, he knew that, but it was something else he just didn't know how to fix. He didn't talk much, he never had, but he responded when she talked to him. They shared a bed and they fucked whenever she wanted to. He always made sure she got off first, too. He didn't know much about sex but he knew _that_. He let her do whatever she wanted with his body. If she wanted to be on top, or on the bottom, or even on their fucking _sides_ he did it, after all, he didn't care what position they used.

He thought she'd be happy that he went along with what she wanted but she wasn't.

He wasn't putting enough into the relationship. He didn't communicate. He left her feeling empty.

What the fuck?

Yuffie and Shelke, even Barret, certainly agreed with Tifa. They'd go on and on about how he wasn't treating her with respect; how he wasn't contributing enough to the relationship. He'd even overheard a few comments from Shera and Reeve, all about how he should be doing better than this.

He was doing what they wanted. Why couldn't they be happy?


	2. Tifa

**Title:** Expectations: Tifa  
**Prompt:** It took long enough for Tifa to speak to me about this. Here's her side.  
**Posted:** 9-Apr-2009  
**Disclaimer:** I have a job that doesn't include working for Square Enix, and this isn't helping me quit.  
**Pairings:** Cloud/Tifa  
**Rating:** PG  
**Summary:** They're trying to do better, why isn't it enough?  
**Warnings:** Angst, some language, and blunt talk about sex.

* * *

**Tifa**

She hadn't expected it to be like this.

The crises were over. The planet was safe. Hojo and Sephiroth, the Clones and Deepground were all destroyed. ShinRa was just a thin echo of what it had once been. They were safe and at peace, so why weren't they happy?

She couldn't get Cloud to talk to her. Oh, he'd listen—he _always_ listened, and he always wore the same expression of solemn interest whether he was talking to the kids or to Reeve or to her. He never looked happy. He never really smiled. Mind you, to be fair, he'd never been a joyful kid—being different in a small town had seen to that, but he _had_ known how to be happy. She could remember him sitting on the water tower, kicking his feet and gazing at the stars. He'd been light-hearted and dreamy, and she'd wanted to kiss him but had been too shy.

She hoped that, after defeating Kadaj and his brothers, after Cloud had returned from the Lifestream cleansed of the geo-stigma, she hoped…. Well, she'd hoped that Cloud would be able to relax more, especially around her. They'd been living together as friends since he'd defeated Sephiroth the first time but when he'd come back they'd begun _living_ together. He'd moved out of his office space and they'd begun sharing a bedroom, a bathroom, a _life_.

Everyone saw them as a couple so why didn't she feel like part of one?

She'd mentioned it to Elena but the blonde had just shrugged. Turks didn't do relationships, she'd said, because it made them vulnerable. Shelke had even more problems than she did, what with her 'I don't know if I'm twelve, twenty or Lucrecia Crescent' thing, but she had Vincent as a partner and Tifa had felt _for sure_ that Shelke would know what she was talking about, but she didn't. Vincent actually _talked_ to her, shared himself with the little adult-child-teenager in an effort to help her balance the mix of people and urges she had inside herself. It was actually nice to see the two of them together. They didn't touch often but there was just something around them that said 'couple'. It was nice… and it was discouraging. Vincent had had just as many problems as Cloud and _he _was doing okay in _his_ relationship.

In a last ditch attempt to get some decent advice, she'd even talked to Yuffie but all the ninja had suggested was to either beat or screw some sense into Cloud...or maybe do both since one could lead to the other. Well, Tifa couldn't do the first—this was _Cloud_ they were talking about, and she'd already tried the latter.

She'd thought… she'd _believed_ all the emotions and feelings Cloud couldn't express through words, he would give to her in bed. It was the ultimate intimate act. After all people were vulnerable during sex; they opened up their bodies, shared themselves, and became one. At least that's what all the romance books promised. That's not how it was between her and Cloud.

For one thing, Cloud never initiated intimacy. Never. Not even a casual peck on the cheek on his way to the coffeepot in the morning. She always had to ask, whether it was for a comfort hug or sex. It was easy enough to ask for the hugs as they were the same casual friend hugs they'd given each other before, but asking for sex was hard. She'd have to say something, he just ignored her if she touched him, and then he'd– he'd _perform_ for her. He'd touch her in intimate places. He'd make her burn and call out. He'd leave her sweaty and boneless. He'd leave her hollow because, the whole time, he'd be watching her with that same look of solemn interest that he always wore.

Here, in their bed, after doing such _personal_ things, that look was cold and scary.

He'd be buried deep inside her body and she'd still feel like they weren't touching. There was no post-coital snuggling either. She could drape herself all over him and never feel like he was holding her close. She didn't call it 'making love' any more. It was just sex.

It was like he was a living sex toy. A super-advanced fucking machine. No messy emotions or untidiness, just flick the switch and lay back and enjoy. Except that she didn't, you know, enjoy, because she wasn't sure if _he_ was enjoying it. She couldn't tell because he'd cum but that could be just an automatic physiological response to stimulus. Considering it had been over three weeks since the last time they'd done anything and, considering he hadn't said a word in complaint or question, she would have to say that he didn't want to have sex.

Or maybe it was just that he didn't want to have sex with _her_.

Maybe he was finding intimacy and comfort somewhere else. Maybe he was only living with her because that's what everyone expected him to do and not because he wanted to. It was thoughts like those that kept her up at night, out of their bed and counting the stock in the bar. He never came to find her. Never asked why she wasn't in bed with him. Never asked why she was crying. He never talked to her about anything except plumbing and garbage and deliveries.

She was supposed to support him emotionally, but wasn't _he_ supposed to support _her _too? Isn't that what couples _did_ for each other?

And she'd _been_ supportive and understanding. She _knew_ how messed up he was—who knew better than her what his mind had been like after Hojo's lab. She believed that he was a truly good person. She just wasn't sure anymore that he was a truly good _partner_. At least not for her.

When that thought had first occurred to her she'd shaken it out of her head as fast as it appeared. Each time it popped back in it stayed longer until now it was an almost constant buzz in the back of her brain colouring everything they did together and said to each other. So she'd tell herself, again, to be patient, to accept that this is what he was right now, to have faith that it would get better, and she'd smile and try to get him involved in their family once again.

Was he really worth the effort? She didn't know any more.

She was tired. She was heart-sore. She was cranky and insecure and she wanted someone to hold her just because _they_ wanted to, not because she'd asked. She wanted someone to talk with about her troubles. Someone who would give her more than one-word responses and a blank look.

For Shiva's sake! He'd been more open and honest with _Denzel_ than he'd been with her.

When she'd made the suggestion that Cloud help Denzel deal with puberty she'd expected him to sit him down for a talk. She didn't expect that he'd take the very underage boy into an adult sex-shop in the middle of the day when any of their neighbours might see them.

Of course one had.

Mrs Comner, the malicious, tongue-wagging _cow_ had come into the bar to buy her weekly bottle, and had commented on how she'd seen the two guys coming out of _that_ store with bags of stuff, and hadn't she, Mrs. Comner, always thought that Cloud looked a little _too_ young and _too_ pretty to be a real man. And didn't that explain why Tifa herself didn't have that lovely glow to her skin that a well-taken-care-off woman would have.

Then Denzel had come up and told her about their shopping trip. He'd remarked on how _nice_ it had been that Cloud had been so _honest_ and _open_ with him. Cloud had talked about what he liked and didn't like in bed with _Denzel_. A thirteen year old boy. But not with her. Never with her, the person who _shared_ his bed.

She'd over-reacted, she knew that.

When she'd gone upstairs to talk to Cloud about it, she'd meant to talk rationally about that and so many other things. She'd tried not to be angry and hurt and betrayed, but he'd sat there with that same bland, blank, look of solemn interest and she just couldn't deal it anymore. It wasn't _real_. He _wasn't_ interested. He went through the motions but he did it badly and it _hurt_!

Suddenly she'd been so angry; it had exploded in her like a cast Firaga. There'd been so much anger that she couldn't hold it all. Even as her hand was moving she'd known that it was wrong, that he didn't deserve it, but she couldn't stop it, and a not-so-small part of her didn't want to. She'd hit him... hard. So hard, she'd bloodied his nose, even knocked him back a step.

What was really sad, what had made her cry alone in the storeroom, was that his expression hadn't changed. He hadn't looked angry or sad or even confused. Maybe he _was_ a fucking machine and, if he was a machine, he was going to grind her heart to a bloody pulp in his gears and he wouldn't even notice.

Unless she asked him to leave before that happened.

She'd been thinking about it more and more; of giving up her dreams of being a couple, of making something work between them. If they split up what would everyone say? Would they be disappointed? Would they understand that she'd tried everything she knew, given everything she had? Would they understand that she could never be enough?

Would Cloud?


End file.
